Dr. Buffy Smith
Nearly 37 million people in the U.S. live in poverty and more than half of Americans don’t have a college degree. The median annual salary Americans earn is about $62,000 but rises to $90,000 with a college degree. The U.S. is slipping in global rankings for postsecondary degree attainment. For America to stay competitive, we must remain committed to college access.
Since 1964, the TRIO federal program has helped low-income students, first-generation college students, students with disabilities, and veterans earn college degrees. There are seven TRIO programs: Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, Talent Search, Educational Opportunity Centers (EOC), Student Support Services (SSS), Veterans Upward Bound, and the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program. TRIO serves students from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, students living in rural and urban areas, and students attending two-year and four-year private and public colleges and universities. TRIO doesn’t provide free tuition, but offers academic tutoring, mentoring, financial guidance, personal counseling, and career services that help students.
TRIO helped me as a first-generation college student in ways my family couldn’t. I was raised by two God-loving, brilliant, hard-working, resilient women: A mother who graduated from high school in Mississippi, but did not earn a college degree, and a grandmother who had a sixth grade education and was a sharecropper and domestic servant. My beloved mother and grandmother pooled their limited resources to take care of my brother and me. When I was admitted to Marquette University as an undergraduate, they were extremely proud. With their support, I was able to achieve professional success in ways that weren’t accessible to them as women without college degrees.
The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program through TRIO helped me earn my Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and led to my becoming dean of the Dougherty Family College (DFC) at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. DFC is a mentoring student-focused two-year college, and I have incorporated my research and experiences in TRIO programs into the college’s design.
The mission of DFC is to remove academic, financial, and social barriers and help low-income and first-generation college students earn their associate degrees and have a seamless pathway to pursue their bachelor’s degrees. At DFC, we provide a learning community that is deeply relational. We focus on building a strong sense of community through our cohort model that reinforces peer mentoring paired with one-on-one staff and faculty mentoring. We take a holistic approach to learning and provide scholars with wraparound support and free resources such as meals, laptops, textbooks and transit passes.
College access programs like TRIO aren’t just helping individuals; these programs are smart investments for the U.S. TRIO yields a 13 to 1 return on investment because people with college degrees have higher lifetime earnings, are more likely to be employed, and pay more taxes. TRIO has over 6 million college graduates working in all industries. TRIO graduates make our middle class stronger and when our middle class is stronger, so is our nation.
As a proud TRIO alum, I am grateful to our country for investing in youth who come from humble beginnings; it is a reflection of our core values and commitment to excellence. As a nation, we should continue to provide multiple opportunities to enter the middle class. TRIO is an evidence-based proven pathway that strengthens our middle class and allows more people to attain college degrees.
In the United States, only 44% of adults have a post-high school credential, including short-term certificate programs, associate degrees, bachelor’s degrees and graduate degrees. Globally we rank 20th; other countries are outpacing us in investments in higher education and our workforce and economy are at risk.
If we continue to divest from college access programs, our global ranking and standard of living will decline.
As an educator, I advocate for college access opportunities for low-income, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities. That advocacy continues in my role as dean at Dougherty Family College. I am paying it forward, like so many other TRIO alumni who contribute to the well-being of communities across our nation. I pray our great country will continue to invest in successful college access programs like TRIO. Investing in TRIO is an investment in a stronger, future middle class.
Dr. Buffy Smith is the Eugene and Mary Frey Endowed Chair and Dean of Dougherty Family College at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota).
